It’s one more way to help you save at the grocery store — so why isn’t unit pricing mandatory?
cost of living6:14If you want to save on food, read the fine print!
One of the best ways to compare grocery store prices is by unit price. It’s that tiny price in the corner of the label that tells you how much something costs per gram or liter. However, unlike some other countries, not all parts of Canada require stores to display the unit price. Jennifer Keene explains why.
Coming from a long line of savers, Jennifer Cypher used to bring a calculator with her when she went grocery shopping with her roommates at college.
Today, she’s still a cautious buyer — but she uses a lesser-known tool to stretch her dollar and track her spending: per-unit pricing.
“I like to compare comparisons and I like to get good value for money,” she said from Toronto. “I noticed that there was one price tag and started using it to make choices at the grocery store.”
For example, many Canadian stores share the price per 100 grams or 100 milliliters below the product’s retail price, but the per unit price is only mandatory in Quebec. In the US, at least 21 states offer flat pricing, 11 of which are required by law to do so.
In basic terms, the price per unit is the price per standard unit of measure; it allows for easier price comparisons between similar products in different sized containers. This way you can see whether it is best to buy the 2.5 liter bottle of cleaner or the 1.5 liter bottle.
“It’s a wonderful, powerful tool to help consumers — and also to increase competition and generally achieve better economic outcomes — because it gives consumers information that empowers them to make better-informed decisions,” said the retired economist Ian Jarratt That cost of living.
No national standards
Jarratt, who is with the Queensland Consumers Association, has campaigned for flat prices in his native Australia for two decades.
“There are very big differences in unit price between products and between brands – between pack sizes, between boxed and unpackaged, between special offers and regular prices, between products that have a high level of convenience,” he said.
But because there are currently no real standards for how the unit price is displayed in Canada, it’s not always presented here in a very consumer-friendly way, said Jay Jackson, director of policy and strategy at the Consumers Council of Canada.
Read the fine print
The Council A study was conducted in 2019* 91 percent of respondents believe everyone should have access to a unit price label – and 96 percent find a unit price very useful.
However, it is often in small print on the price tag that is stuck to the store shelf.
“Some of our focus groups said, ‘First of all, you have to bend down really low to see it. You need a magnifying glass,'” Jackson said. “It gives the impression that the retailer really doesn’t want you to see it and makes you wonder why they even wear it.”
If a retailer has one-size-fits-all prices for some products but not all, that’s a warning sign for Cypher when she’s shopping.
“Sometimes I’m suspicious that they do this on purpose to try and trick you into not knowing the prices.”
Shops that contain it are viewed positively
Jarratt doesn’t understand why all retailers don’t want to take it up — and let their customers know they’re doing it.
“Consumers value retailers who offer effective unit prices,” he said. “And they’re more likely to keep using the store.”
And people might look at unit prices and still buy the more expensive one, especially when they see that the difference isn’t that big.
But for those who focus on the bottom line, you can’t beat it.
“Especially for low-income consumers, it’s important to know what the lowest price is,” Jackson said. “Maybe brand isn’t that important to them, but price is. And not just low-income consumers — all consumers, considering how price hikes have been lately.”
A tool to deal with “shrinkflation”
Unit pricing can also be useful to deal with what is known as “shrinkflation” – when a company reduces the size of a pack by quantity or volume but leaves the price the same.
Jarratt said if you ask people the size of their cereal box, they most likely won’t know right off the bat.
“People don’t focus very much on quantity, but they do focus on price,” he said.
Cypher agrees.
“I go shopping a lot,” she says. “I will be putting together an order online so I find it very helpful to be able to work out how much things are in relation to the size they are.”
In Canada, it is up to each province to decide whether to make unit pricing mandatory. However, decisions would need to be made about which standards to follow Instructions have already been developed.
Loblaw, which voluntarily offers one-size-fits-all nationwide, told CBC News via email that it’s “part of our commitment to helping customers make financially-informed decisions when purchasing products.”
Karl Littler, senior vice president of public affairs at the Retail Council of Canada, said price is an important factor. But they also buy based on how many units are in a package, how much storage space they have, and how much they will use before the next purchase, among other things.
And he said manufacturers are already doing a lot of testing to see what pack size consumers prefer.
While Littler said he sees the utility of unit pricing, “not everything that is appealing is necessarily required by law.”
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However, New Zealand wants to make it law, and it currently is Advice on the introduction of mandatory unit prices.
Australia is also looking at ways to extend its current per unit pricing practices to the levels offered in parts of Europe where it can be found in pharmacies, hardware stores, pet shops as well as grocery stores.
“I think it’s a huge benefit for consumers,” Jarratt said. “We live in an information age. Why don’t we offer consumers any [a] more important information to help them make more informed decisions?”
* Information for the study was gathered through an online quantitative survey conducted by the Environics Research Group, which included results from 2,000 respondents in English and French. The sample was designed to be representative of Canada’s general population aged 18 and over based on age, gender and region from the 2016 Census.